Speech by Samuel Gompers on World War I
Speaker:Samuel Gompers
Why a City Should Have a Settlement
Speaker:Helen Hall
The New Citizenship
Speaker:Rep. Harry T. Burn
On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state—the last needed—to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. In declaring, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” the amendment reversed the Fourteenth Amendment’s limitation of that right to male citizenship.[note]“19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920),” Our Documents - a Cooperative Effort among National History Day, The National Archives and Records Administration, and USA Freedom Corps., n.d., http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=63.[/note] By the time the Tennessee Legislature passed suffrage, over one-third of the states had already extended suffrage to their female citizens. Tennessee was not among them, however, and suffrage was not wildly popular in the state.[note]For an exhaustive list and a timeline for expanding suffrage, see: “Woman Suffrage Timeline (1840-1920),” National Women’s History Museum, n.d., https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/history/woman-suffrage-timeline.[/note] Despite this, the Tennessee state senate voted twenty-five to four to ratify, sending the measure to the house.[note]Elizabeth Taylor, “A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 2, no. 3 (September 1, 1943): 212.[/note]
The ninety-nine-member house more closely reflected the state’s political mood. A forty-eight to forty-eight deadlock left ratification in the hands of a twenty-four-year-old, first-term representative named Harry T. Burn. Suffragists did not quite know how to assess their chances: Burn had told them he favored suffrage personally, but that he was inclined to vote against it because that was how his constituents felt.[note]Robert B. Jones and Mark E. Byrnes. “The ‘Bitterest Fight’: The Tennessee General Assembly and the Nineteenth Amendment.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 68, no. 3 (October 1, 2009): 277.[/note] Even his mother wrote him that she had “been watching to see how [he] stood.”[note]“Letter to Harry Burn from Mother,” August 1920, Harry T. Burn Papers, Knox County Public Library, Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.[/note] On the day of the vote, Burn wore a red rose in his lapel—the visual marker that he would vote against ratification.[note]Anastatia Sims, “‘Powers That Pray’ and ‘Powers That Prey’: Tennessee and the Fight for Woman Suffrage,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 50, no. 4 (December 1, 1991): 218.[/note] But when the moment came, Rep. Burn voted to ratify. After his vote, Burn was forced to flee to escape an angry mob, and his colleagues attempted to reconsider passage—but these intimidations were unsuccessful. The ratification proceeded to Tennessee’s supportive governor.[note]Taylor, “A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee,” 213.[/note]
After the vote, a story developed to explain Rep. Burn’s vote. That story evolved from a letter he received from his mother right before his fateful vote. The letter, now in possession of the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, encourages Burn to “be a good boy and help Mrs. ‘Thomas Catt’ with her ‘Rats.’” (This is generally presumed to be a reference to suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt.)[note]Taylor, “A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee,” 213.[/note] The letter is postmarked August 17, 1920, and Burn supposedly received it the morning of the August 18—just as he was going to the capitol to vote on ratification. Because his mother had raised him to “be a good boy,” Burn said that he followed her call to “vote for suffrage.”[note]“Letter to Harry Burn from Mother.”[/note] When Knoxville-area suffragists planned a banquet to celebrate the passage of suffrage, they invited not only Rep. Burn—but his mother to the event.[note]“French. Harry T. Burn Letter,” September 18, 1920, Lizzie Crozier French Papers, Knox County Public Library, Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.[/note]
They also invited Burn to deliver the keynote address on the subject of “The New Citizenship.” The speech held great significance because Rep. Burn “did not speak publicly in favor of suffrage before casting his historic vote,” and his only public remarks after the vote were short answers addressing charges that he had been bribed.[note]Personal communication with Steve Cotham, McClung Collection Manager, “Harry T. Burn Papers,” September 22, 2015.[/note] For the most part, Burn had explained his vote individually to his constituents, either through personal meetings or individual correspondence.
The day after the banquet—September 22, 1920—the Knoxville Sentinel reprinted Burn’s remarks within an article about the banquet.[note]“Suffrage Victory Is Celebrated; Women Give Banquet To Solons Who Were Ratification Boosters,” Knoxville Sentinel, September 22, 1920.[/note] After stating that “it had indeed been a great privilege to him finally to support suffrage,” he proceeded to address the topic at hand. Rather than repeating that his mother changed his vote, though, Burn demonstrates his well-developed sense of why suffrage was beneficial. Burn’s remarks reflect prominent themes from the pro-suffrage movement. Furthermore, Burn redirects the spotlight to those who had worked far longer and harder for suffrage than he had on winning suffrage for women.
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On Suffrage
Speaker:Rose Winslow
Rose Winslow (Ruża Wenclawska) was one of many Polish immigrants coming to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Even though we do not know her birth date, we know that she was eleven when her family moved to Pennsylvania presumably in the 1890s. To support her family, she worked ten to twelve-hour days in the textile mills. Working conditions in the textile industry were catastrophic and, like many of her peers, Winslow contracted tuberculosis when she was a teenager. This experience motivated Winslow to become a labor organizer for the Garment Workers’ Union League and a labor advocate with the Consumer’s League.[note]Linda Ford, Iron-Jawed Angels: The Suffrage Militancy of the National Woman’s Party, 1912-1920 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), 60-63; Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene, After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010), 16.[/note] As part of her advocacy for workers’ rights, Winslow testified before legislative hearings in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to advocate for—among other things—an eight-hour workday for women.
Winslow’s eloquent speech in Harrisburg circulated widely and attracted the attention of Alice Paul, the leader of the National Women’s Party (NWP).[note]Ford, Iron-Jawed Angels, 60-63.[/note] The NWP was one of the more radical groups advocating for women’s votes, undertaking the most militant and visible tactics of the women’s suffrage movement (e.g., suffrage parades, suffrage protests in front of President Wilson’s White House). Paul actively recruited women from the working class who could eloquently spread the suffrage message, and Winslow was one of Paul’s most prominent recruits.[note]Ibid., 91-120.[/note] As part of the NWP, Winslow undertook a speaking tour of the United States and even spoke in front of President Wilson.[note]“Miss Rose Winslow,” Times-Leader, June 16, 1915; “Workers Here to Ask Wilson for Suffrage,”Washington Post, February 1, 1914; “Party in Power False to Cause of Suffragists,”The Morning Echo, October 23, 1914.[/note]
Winslow also took part in the “Silent Sentinel” protests—one of the more radical expressions of protest under Paul’s leadership. During these protests, NWP members protested silently in front of President Wilson’s White House every day for over two years.[note]Belinda A. Stillion Southard, Militant Citizenship: Rhetorical Strategies of the National Woman’s Party, 1913-1920 (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2011), 121-148.[/note] These protests and her eventual arrest by police on trumped-up charges demonstrated Winslow’s dedication and spirit of self-sacrifice. During their time in prison together, both Winslow and Paul participated in hunger strikes and were force-fed by prison guards. Winslow captured just how grueling such feedings were for them when she wrote: “one lies prone and people shove a pipe down one’s stomach.” In notes passed along to supporters from her prison cell, Winslow disclosed, “I heard myself making the most hideous sounds, like an animal in pain.”[note]Rose Winslow, “Prison Notes, Smuggled to Friends from the District Jail (1917),” in Treacherous Texts: U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846-1946, ed. Mary Chapman and Angela Mills (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 282-283.[/note] As Belinda A. Stillion Southard attests, this experience, alongside other forms of prison mistreatment, contributed to the sense of “militant identity” among the suffragists during the later stages of their movement.[note]Stillion Southard, Militant Citizenship, 144-148.[/note]
Efforts like Winslow’s to unite the suffrage and working-class movements were essential to the growth of both movements’ successes in the early 1910s.[note]Ibid., 50.[/note] Against the backdrop of growing consciousness of the labor and suffrage movements, Winslow engaged in a speaking tour that brought her to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in June of 1915. Before an audience of predominantly male workers, Winslow faced a challenge of persuading them to support women’s suffrage. She also needed to address her own identity as a suffragist hailing from the working class. As a working-class advocate attracted to the suffrage movement, Winslow argued that women’s suffrage was crucial to all workers—men and women alike. This argument was not an easy one to advance. The male-dominated workers’ movement often failed to recognize the challenges faced by women in factories and other low-income jobs.[note]Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in The United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 95, 156-157, 269.[/note] The women’s suffrage movement also struggled to unite working-class and middle- and upper-class women. [note]Ford, Iron-Jawed Angels, 92-120.[/note] In fighting for women’s rights as workers and as voters, Winslow experienced gender and class tensions within both movements.
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Law and Order in Egypt
Speaker:Theodore Roosevelt
After Theodore Roosevelt left the presidency in 1909, he embarked on a 15-month tour of Africa and Europe—a journey that captured the interest and imagination of people at home and abroad. Roosevelt’s adventures were chronicled in the 1910 volume, African Game Trails, where he detailed his enchantment with big game hunting and the geographical, botanical, and zoological landscape of Africa.[note]Theodore Roosevelt, African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919), vii–x.[/note] Leisurely pursuits aside, Roosevelt also sought to create both physical and political distance between himself and his successor, William Howard Taft.[note]J. Lee Thompson, Theodore Roosevelt Abroad: Nature, Empire, and the Journey of an American President (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), x.[/note] As an ex-president, Roosevelt’s tour did not entail a formal diplomatic role. Yet, he did engage in unofficial American diplomacy. Most importantly, Roosevelt intended to strengthen American imperialism in the Philippines by comparing United States relations with the Philippines to its British counterparts in Africa.[note]Roosevelt made the argument, for example, in this way: “It is of interest to all civilized men that a similar success shall attend alike the Englishman and the German as they work in East Africa; exactly as it has been a benefit to everyone that America took possession of the Philippines;” Theodore Roosevelt and Lawrence F. Abbott, “British Rule in Africa: Address Delivered at the Guildhall, London, May 31, 1910,” in African and European Addresses (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), 205.[/note]
Egypt, the last leg of Roosevelt's tour through Africa, was fraught with political uncertainty. Though technically ruled by a Khedive, an Egyptian leader that was part of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was, practically speaking, a British protectorate. Egypt, like other colonial protectorates at the time, was subjected to the evolving shifts in modern nationalism. Nationalist movements across the country demanded “Egypt for Egyptians” and “Egypt for Moslems” in the form of self-government.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Roosevelt to Have Keen Guard in Cairo,” New York Times, March 23, 1910, 4.[/note] Prime Minister Boutros Ghali Pasha, a Coptic Christian and a strong supporter of British oversight in Egypt, attracted the ire of the Nationalist Party because of his support for extending the French lease on the Suez Canal and for wrongly sentencing five Egyptians to death for the alleged murder of a British officer.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, 4.[/note] On February 10, 1910, just a few weeks before Roosevelt’s visit, a member of the Egyptian Nationalist Party assassinated the Boutros Ghali Pasha.[note]David H. Burton, Theodore Roosevelt: Confident Imperialist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969), 179.[/note] A political assassination of this kind was unprecedented in Egypt and the British had yet to try the perpetrator in court by the time Roosevelt arrived.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Roosevelt to Have Keen Guard in Cairo,”4.[/note] Lord Eldon Gorst, then Counsel-General of Egypt, feared complicating an already volatile situation and discouraged Roosevelt from commenting on the assassination in his public remarks.[note]Stephen Wertheim, “Reluctant Liberator: Theodore Roosevelt’s Philosophy of Self-Government and Preparation for Philippine Independence,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 39, no. 3 (2009): 503.[/note] Roosevelt, in an attitude of confident “indifference,” condemned the assassination and those who supported it in no uncertain terms in his “Law and Order in Egypt” speech.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Roosevelt to Have Keen Guard in Cairo,”4.[/note]
The “Law and Order in Egypt” speech was delivered at the National University in Cairo (now known as the University of Cairo) to commemorate its establishment as an institution of higher learning. One of the most notable members of Roosevelt’s audience was Prince Ahmed Fouad, the uncle of the Khedive. The audience also included British dignitaries and a largely nationalist student body.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Roosevelt Censures Killing of Boutros,” New York Times, March 29, 1910, 4.[/note] In his speech, Roosevelt extolled the virtues of education in the advancement of a civilization while strongly encouraging Egyptians to be patient in their pursuit of self-governance. Egyptians, according to Roosevelt, needed to cultivate their moral character under the auspices of the civilizing power—an attitude he inherited from his father who was a religious reformer in New York City. [note]Burton, Theodore Roosevelt: Confident Imperialist, 9–10.[/note]
Reception to Roosevelt’s message was mixed. Conservative commentators in London like The Spectator, called Roosevelt’s speech “so wise and so honorable.”[note]“Roosevelt and Egypt: Liberal Organs in England Blame and Conservatives Praise Cairo Speech,” New York Times, April 2, 1910, 6.[/note] Liberal British observers found Roosevelt’s call for more exacting rule in Egypt a haphazard interference in British affairs.[note]“Liberal Organs in England Blame and Conservatives Praise Cairo Speech,” 6.[/note] Egyptian responses were not quite so diverse. Though some Egyptian conservative and Christian newspapers were delighted with Roosevelt’s recommendations, the streets of Cairo erupted with protests following the “Law and Order in Egypt” speech.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Egyptians Resent Roosevelt Speech,” New York Times, March 30, 1910, 4.[/note] The Young Egypt Committee called the speech “offensive to the whole nation” and accused Roosevelt of fashioning it only to appease his hosts—the British colonial governors.[note]“Condemns Roosevelt Speech,” New York Times, April 1, 1910, 4.[/note] Despite his controversial speech, Roosevelt was still awarded the highest honorary degree from the university.[note]John Callan O’Laughlin, “Roosevelt Censures Killing of Boutros,”4.[/note]
The “Law and Order in Egypt” speech, when read in tandem with his speeches “Peace and Order in the Sudan” (Khartoum, March 16, 1910) and “British Rule in Africa” (London, May 31, 1910), illustrates Roosevelt’s complicated philosophy on self-government and imperialism.[note]Wertheim, “Reluctant Liberator: Theodore Roosevelt’s Philosophy of Self-Government and Preparation for Philippine Independence,” 495–96.[/note]
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